Genteel poverty

Genteel poverty is a state of poverty marked by one's connection or affectation towards a higher ("genteel") social class.^[1] Those in genteel poverty are often people, possibly titled, who have fallen from wealth due to various circumstances. Others may be working-class people, but are seen as the "genteel poor" if they are perceived as more refined than others in their social class.

Spinsters from wealthy families were likely to fall into genteel poverty during those points in history when women were barred from earning a living wage through work. Aristocratic families with a lack of male heirs risk falling into genteel poverty when the family money passes out of the household to the oldest male relative. Those described as the genteel poor who do come from the aristocratic class may still retain one or more servants, and live off rental income or income from a country estate, although this money may not sufficiently cover daily expenses or the luxuries typical to those from a lineage of landed gentry. The genteel poor may also describe those on fixed income such as pensioners, or vicars whose income is determined by their local parish.

Working-class people who have a higher level of education or training such as teachers or skilled artisans may be considered members of the genteel poor. The term can also describe people from working-class backgrounds who pretend towards a higher class through their interests and affectations, such as Leonard Bast of the 1910 novel Howards End: a lower-middle class insurance clerk who reads and attends lectures in the pursuit of self-improvement.

The term peaked in usage in the late 19th century^[2] and characters in genteel poverty are often seen in English literature of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The genteel poor as seen in these works are typically not working class.^[3] Notable books containing characters which are members of the genteel poor include I Capture the Castle, Little Lord Fauntleroy, and many of the works of Jane Austen. For example, in Emma, Miss Bates and Mrs. Bates have fallen into genteel poverty because of the death of Mr. Bates, who was Highbury's clergyman. In Sense and Sensibility, the main characters, the Dashwoods fall into genteel poverty as their family inheritance passes to the family patriarch's son by his first wife.

Theodore Dalrymple suggested that the genteel poor as a phenomenon had disappeared by the 1960s and 70s due to the decline of the genteel social class (that is, the British gentry) as well as inflation.^[3] Yet in 2024 the writer Cosmo Landesman still described his own state as one of genteel poverty.^[4]

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